Video

Naomi Klein: I’m Naomi Klein, reporting for The Intercept, and I’m here in London at the Houses of Parliament with Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, three weeks after the Labour Party in an historic election won many, many more seats than anybody predicted – except for some of the people in this room, who saw it coming. And it’s just an enormous pleasure to be here with Jeremy and to talk about the importance of a forward-looking, bold agenda to do battle with the right. Hi, Jeremy.

Jeremy Corbyn: Lovely to see you.

NK: So, Jeremy Corbyn, it’s been extraordinary being in the U.K. this week, and seeing the political space that you have opened up, and the fact that now we’re seeing the Tories try to poach some of your policies and scramble to try to appeal to young people by talking about maybe getting rid of tuition fees.

JC: Well, social justice isn’t copyrighted, but it’s a bigger picture than just the individual issues.

NK: I want to talk about this extraordinary moment in which the project that really began under Thatcher in this country, and Reagan in the U.S. — the whole so-called consensus that never really was a consensus, the war on the collective, on the idea that we can do good things when we get together — is crumbling. But it’s also kind of a dangerous moment, when you have a vacuum of ideology, because dangerous ideas are also surging. So what is the plan to make sure that it is progressive, hopeful ideas that enter into this vacuum that has opened up?

JC: It’s been a very interesting two years. We’ve had two leadership elections in the Labour Party, which mobilized very large numbers of people. It’s not about me. It’s about a cause, it’s about people. And then we’ve just come out of a general election campaign in which we started in a very difficult political position and ended up gaining three million more votes than 2015, and the highest Labour vote in England for many, many decades.

There was a big swing to Labour, but not quite enough, unfortunately, to give us a Parliamentary majority. And so, we’re now in a situation where there is a huge confidence amongst those that are campaigning for ending the wage cap in the public sector for investment in public services. And a huge degree of uncertainty by the right and by the Conservatives.

NK: I feel like what your campaign has done, and the boldness of the Labour Manifesto – and this election campaign has proved that when you put the ideas forward, when you put the bold vision of the world we actually want – not just the opposition to austerity, you know, not just the “no,” but also a picture of the world that could be so much better than we have, that’s when people get excited.

JC: The strongest message – indeed. I said this at many, many rallies and events we held: “Look around the crowd. Look at each other. You’re all different. You’re all unique. You’re all individuals. You have different backgrounds, languages. Different ethnic communities. But you’re all united. You’re united in what you actually want in the sense of a collective in society.”

And I think the election campaign was a turning point away from the supreme individualism of the right towards the idea that you’re a better society when you have a collective good about it.

NK: And what about that picture of the world after we win? How important is that?

JC: The picture of the world is a crucial one. It is about what we do to deal with issues of injustice and inequality and poverty, and above all, hope and opportunity for young people. Hope that they can get to college or university, opportunity they can get a decent job. And it’s also about the contribution we make to the rest of the world and the relationship we have with the rest of the world.

I want a foreign policy based on human rights, based on respect for international law, based for recognizing the causes of the refugee flows, the causes of the injustice around the world. And that is something we’re developing. And indeed, there were some awful events during the election campaign. Before the election started there was an attack on Westminster itself and on Parliament. There was then the dreadful bomb in Manchester. And then there was an attack in London on London Bridge.

NK: And you committed kind of political heresy because you talked about some of the root causes. Yet that resonated with people.

JC: I’m not in any way minimizing the horror of what happened or the awful things the individuals did, but I said you’ve got to look at the international context in which there’s been this growth. And I can hear myself like yesterday, on February 15, 2003, saying, “What could be the worst-case scenario if we went to war in Iraq?” I wasn’t defending Saddam Hussein. I was just saying, if you go to war in Iraq and you destabilize the whole country, there are consequences.

NK: I think it’s important for Americans in this moment to understand that you were able to say that, and that it resonated with people because they know it to be true. Because we don’t know what’s going to happen during the Trump administration. But we do know that Donald Trump fully intends to take advantage of any crisis to push forward this incredibly regressive, xenophobic agenda, because he tried to exploit the Manchester attacks to say this is about immigrants flowing across our borders. He tried to take advantage of the London Bridge attack to say this is why we need to Muslim ban.

JC: He also attacked the mayor of London, who’s the first Muslim elected to mayoral office anywhere in Western Europe. People were extremely angry at the language he used toward Sadiq Khan, who is, after all, elected mayor of the city.

NK: Well, what do you say to some of the world leaders who think that they can only go so far in standing up to Trump? You know, like maybe they’ll put out a sassy meme of some kind. But ultimately they’re going to welcome him with open arms. What do you think the stance of other world leaders who claim to stand for progressive values should be in this moment?

JC: Well, I think they’ve got to meet Trump and discuss with him, as one would with any leader. I was shocked by the language he used during his election campaign — about women, about Muslims, and about Mexicans, about other people in society. I was also appalled at the language he used surrounding the Paris Climate Change discussions. I mean, these are serious, serious global issues. What kind of world are we going to leave in the future? What are we doing to this planet? And he seemed to think this was an opportunity for promoting polluting industries.

NK: Well, he actually said he was going to negotiate a better deal.

JC: Well, I’m not sure what he means by a better deal and that would be an interesting discussion. But having worked, like you have, for a very long time on these issues, the fact that finally India and China, in a formal setting, came onboard with the idea there are limits to emissions, there are limits to pollution, there are limits to what you can do. For the USA having come onboard under Obama, then walking away under Trump, is beyond sad.

NK: But certainly because they’re going so rogue on climate, I think there is a responsibility for everybody else to do more in this moment, not to just sort of – okay, he’s lowered the bar so much that everybody looks good in comparison. And we are seeing examples of that. We’re seeing – including in the U.S., we’re seeing cities stepping up and saying, well, we’re going to speed up our transition to renewables. And internationally I think we can see the same thing as well.

JC: I think that the image of the USA is too often presented as the image of what Donald Trump has said day-to-day, whereas the reality, look at the number of jobs in renewables in California alone runs into the hundreds of thousands. Look at the growth of renewable energy systems across the USA, the number of states and cities that are serious about protecting their environment and controlling what they can of climate change.

NK: I want to talk a little bit about the way some of my friends in the United States are feeling right now, who were very inspired by this election campaign and by your leadership bid within the Labour Party.

I have to tell you that people are feeling a little discouraged right now in the United States. They are up against Trump, but they’re also up against a Democratic party that is fighting them on single-payer healthcare, on universal public healthcare, that seems to want to keep charting what they see as a safe, centrist path, but what we’re seeing again and again is it’s not safe because it’s a losing path. It’s not speaking to people’s urgent needs for good jobs, for a free public education and affordable healthcare. What do you say to the people who organized for Bernie and are just feeling really frustrated right now?

JC: Bernie called me the day after our election here. I was half asleep watching something on television. And Bernie comes on to say, well done on the campaign, and I was interested in your campaigning ideas. Where did you get them from? And I said, well, you, actually.

And what I would say to people is: Don’t be discouraged. At the end of the day, human beings want to do things together. They want to do things collectively. And that’s the kind of society all of us are trying to create. We went into an election campaign in a difficult political position, and we put forward a manifesto that was collective in its approach, was specific in what it would do, in the sense of ending university tuition fees, in the sense of raising minimum income, and we gained the biggest increase in vote for our party since the Second World War. And we gained the support and participation of a very large number of people. We didn’t win the election. I wish we had. But in that campaign, we changed the debate in exactly the same way Senator Bernie Sanders’s intervention into Democratic nomination did mobilize a very large number of people.

NK: But you did win the leadership of the Labour Party. That campaign wasn’t ultimately successful within the Democratic Party. Do you think people should keep fighting for the soul of that party?

JC: Well, it’s the soul of the people, isn’t it?

It’s not for me to tell people what specific organizations they should or shouldn’t have in the USA, because the party system in the USA is very different.

What we’ve done is change the terms of debate, but the other key point, and this is what works on both sides of the Atlantic, is a method of campaigning. You knock on doors and you identify voters. That’s key, crucial. But if you’re seen solely through the prism of media that is quite rightwing and quite conservative in its views, then all you’re doing when you knock on the door is hearing an echo of what people have heard on a rightwing television station or through the printed media.

Social media and the technology and techniques that are there through social media give an opportunity that’s never been there before to get that message across. Just think, those people that were campaigning for social justice in Chicago in the 1920s, the best they could do was print their own newspaper if they could afford it, or make a leaflet and take it round and hand it out on bread queues. I grew up in the era when you used to print your own leaflets and go and give them out. You can now send out something on social media, and you can reach potentially millions of people in five minutes. The opportunities are there. And it’s not regulated, it’s not censored, it’s not controlled.

William Randolph Hearst would have hated the Internet.

NK: It seems to me that you have received just about as bad media treatment, smears from elite media, as is possible to receive. And yet it didn’t work. In fact, it seems to have backlashed and contributed to this feeling of loss of faith in many of these elite institutions.

JC: I think there’s something in that. After a while, a high degree of media abuse makes you a figure of interest.

NK: You talk about changing the debate, and that’s clearly happened. One of the places we’ve seen this is in the Grenfell Tower catastrophe crime scene. And the way in which this horrific event has been interpreted, it seems, throughout British society, is as extreme evidence of a failed system that does not value human life, that puts kind of a hierarchy on life.

JC: What it exposed was something about modern urban living. This is the borough in London that is the richest in the whole country. Very, very rich borough. And its council gave a rebate to the top taxpayers last year. Gave them a little gift.

NK: Money back.

JC: That tower had several hundred people living in it, some of whom were tenants of the local council, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Some flats had been bought independently, and they were sub-tenanted or sub-sub-tenanted. Nobody really knew who was in the block. The whole system collapsed. The reality was, it’s a product of insufficient regulation, of deregulation, and it was a towering inferno of the poor being burnt in the richest borough in the country.

And that’s a wakeup call about safety of buildings. It’s a wakeup call about the idea you go forward to this wonderful free market Valhalla of the future by tearing up every regulation like it’s a denial of the opportunities for the private sector. And so the debate has turned full circle on this. I went there the following day and spent quite a lot of time talking to those that escaped from the tower, and talking to traumatized firefighters and paramedics and ambulance workers and police officers who were getting ready to go into the building – to was then cooling from the fire – in order to bring out the bodies. They’re the real heroes in this. It’s a lesson for the whole country. But people are frightened.

NK: There’s a wall now – and I think you’ve probably seen it — where residents have put up questions that they have for the authorities. And you know, these questions are just completely heartbreaking. There’s kids asking, Is my school safe? There’s on question from a ten-year-old child who said, “Why does it take this to bring us together?”

JC: That’s a good question.

NK: I think we learn this lesson again and again during times of crisis, when we’re tested. We can either turn inward and against each other, and we saw a lot of that after 9/11 in the United States, where Muslims were scapegoated, and we lost a lot of liberties in this country and around the world with these draconian laws pushed through. Wars were started in the name of that attack.

And here we are in a time of overlapping crisis. Climate change is one of those crises, and inequality is another, and racial injustice is another. Do you think we can connect the dots and develop an agenda that solves multiple problems at once, multiple crises?

JC: Well, climate change and refugees are linked. Climate change and war is linked. Environmental disaster, not necessarily always associated with climate change, is also linked when you have deforestation and you end up destroying your local environment because of it.

And so, if you look at the war in Darfur, look at the refugee flows into Libya, partly from the war in Syria, also from human rights abuses across the whole region. Also from people who have been driven off their land in sub-Saharan Africa to make way for often very large corporations buying up land to grow various crops, often rice or fruit, to export somewhere else, leaving the local population unemployed and hungry. There is a connection about the need for supporting the living and development rights of everybody, not just yourself at their expense.

NK: I want to ask you if there’s been a moment that really sticks with you during the campaign or since that is the most hopeful moment you’ve seen, where you could see the country that you want to live in, a glimpse of it.

JC: There was a gentleman who came to our rally in Hastings, which is south coast seaside resort fishing town. He was aged 91. I joked with him, because I’d been told he was 92, and he said how dare I call him 92, he was only 91. He joined the Labour Party in 1945, been a party member ever since then. Very active all his life. And he said this was the most hopeful time of his life. And he told me his mother had been a suffragette who campaigned for the women’s right to vote at the time of the First World War. And his grandfather had been in the Chartists in the 1850s, which helped bring about some degree of democracy in Britain. And I just thought, this man has come out to a rally on a Saturday morning at that age because he’s full of hope for young people.

We were characterized as an election campaign that was full of young, idealistic people. Yeah, there were a lot of young people there, and many of them with brilliant ideals and brilliant imagination. There were also a lot of older people there who came there saying, “I want something better for my grandchildren. I want something better for society in the future.” It was a coming together of large numbers of people.

NK: Well, I really want to thank you for your leadership and for your boldness, because it isn’t only inspiring people in this country; I think it’s inspiring people around the world who really do need some inspiration right now, particularly in United States.

JC: Thank you very much. It’s not about you or I as individuals. When people’s minds are opened up, there is no end to the possibilities.

We depend on the support of readers like you to help keep our nonprofit newsroom strong and independent. Join Us

Related

Contact the author:

I do not believe in Hope. I am disappointed that Jeremy uses that term. Hope is what makes his supporters fail. It is time to stop Hoping and start Doing. It is time to just take power and make change. The people that run the world have the balls to do that. Trump wanted power so he took it, whilst Bernie Sanders meekily stepped aside for a clearly weaker yet utterly corrupt and probably insane competitor. Why? Because he is pathetic. He is happy with his lot and did not want to push his luck further.

Jeremy Corbyn is a good man, but he is tied into old-school Labour rhetoric about the Collective being greater than the greed of individuals. That is rubbish and has been proven wrong time and again around the world. History shows us that small groups of selfish thugs will always dominate docile masses – talking about Collectives and the Many vs. the Few will not change that.

Actions will. Making transparent and democratising taxation and state expenditure programs will change this. Admitting that Big Business and mega-corporations is bad for business and ending their protectionist monopolies, control of the legal system and revolving doors with government will change this. Recognising that we all have certain basic needs like food and housing, yet that diversity in lifestyles and business activities and approaches to life is essential and that any systems – governmental or commercial – that try to overly standardise will cause more harm than good will change this. Dismantling the modern military and intelligence services will change this. Opening up borders will change this. Decentralising governments and monetary systems will change this. Recognising that the present systems of government and commerce are set to favour an elite and so are completely failing and rotten will change this.

That’s a lot to do and leaves no room for pointlessly Hoping in any of that.

Smell that coffee, Naomi. I am going back to England soon and I hope to get the chance to say some of that directly to Mr Corbyn’s face.

This interview was so different then what I has seen with Bernie Sanders. Corbyn was reflective and not giving the pat slogans. I love Bernie but I wish I would get more than just paste and copy answers, like all politicians in U.S.
Also, to those idiot comments throwing around the word communist, you are so useless.

I like Corbyn, I attended Conference last year when none of the Labour old guard were there. I am not in a party presently. The Offices of State are disconnected from the body of our culture as they are from other cultures.
Trump for example is simply unorthodox, he had no new ideas.
Corbyn is unorthodox compared to New Labour, there are no new ideas.
This era change needs real Union and Unions to challenge Executives globally, that is step one.
Next there needs to be a paradox that changes the orthodox, this is spiritual leadership. Not old religions, but the inspiration that flows through living conscience, through science, through actual Human realisation.
My message at http://www.drt.global/corporate begins a message that invites the global leaders to begin to heal their Offices.
+447525728719

Great Britain is a country that has been in continuous decline for over a hundred years and in many ways is a continual embarrassment on the world stage.

And yet .. twice since WWII Britain has pioneered major changes in western political ideology. First, with the welfarism established by the radical Labour govt of 1945, then with the Thatcherite-neoliberal turn of 1979. Could it be that the septic isle is about to herald another major turning point in the political tide of the West? It’s happened before when this ludicrous old country has been in dire straits ..

In the last hundred years, the U.K. population has increased, its economic output has increased, life expectancy has increased, number of visitors has increased, number of immigrants has increased, number of foreign students has increased, foreign investments have increased.

Yes, quite obviously I was referring to the decline in Britain’s relative economic and geopolitical status.
That’s been continuous since about the 1870s. But even on the eve of WWI GB was still the most technologically advanced nation on Earth, source of the greatest inventions of the age. It was the manufacturing centre of Europe, shipbuilding centre of the world. Its empire covered a quarter of the globe; with its showpiece colonies – India, Australia, Canada and South Africa – being the envy of the world. GB dominated global trade, the British pound was the world’s default currency, English its default language and the Royal Navy the world’s largest naval force.
That dominant economic and geopolitical status is long gone: the empire has vanished along with most of its productive industry. Its economy now revolves around being a lightly-regulated, offshore money-laundering centre, while foreign policy has long been dictated by Washington.

“Yes, quite obviously I was referring to the decline in Britain’s relative economic and geopolitical status”

I see. You are talking about the same UK, but you have no idea what economic or geopolitical decline means.

(Hint: 1) even with the effect of inflation the UK economy is stronger now than it was during the British Empire. 2) 15% of direct investments in the US come from the UK. That is almost half of a trillion dollars. Econ 101: when locals can invest these kinds of cash overseas, then their status is not declining.)

It is quite strange that many of you seem to be proud of your blatant ignorant statements.

Anybody who insists that Britain’s relative economic and geopolitical status is as great now as the days when it was workshop of the world, dominated global trade and directly ruled over a quarter of the planet should probably …
.. ah, sod it. I’ll just say good luck with your posting career, wherever it ends up taking you.

“Great Britain is a country that has been in continuous decline for over a hundred years”

But statistics related to economics, healthcare, technology, foreign investments, education show that Great Britain has improved in the last hundred years.
Conclusion: your statement illustrates ignorance as it confuses colonization with economic success, high standard of living and global status.

Statistics only prove what you want them to prove because you select the numbers that are “good”. And those numbers do not reflect what people “feel”.

IMHO the extremely unequal distribution of wealth represents a failure of the political system and represents “decline”. That the number of “rough sleepers” in London doubled from 2010 to 2016 represents “decline”. Brexit (IMHO) represents “decline” in that it shows a country that fears losing its identity to a “Greater Europe”.

In the USA, Trump’s election represents decline. The ever expanding GWOT is decline. The rise of the oligarch represents decline.

If one only pays attention to the creation of wealth without how that wealth is distributed and used, you get a very different answer about whether or not a nation is in decline.

On a world wide basis, ACD surely represents decline in that it is much like someone who wins the lottery, parties hard for 5 years, then ends up broke. Were those 5 years “success”?

Thank you Naomi for the interview. Made me tear up, as even though Corbyn didn’t outright win he got so many votes T. May realized what she was selling was toxic, her landslide didn’t happen, and enough they won more seats in Parliament .
I do wish we had a parliamentary system, not so crammed into just 2 parties who obviously don’t speak for everyone & mainly seem to speak to/for their donors.

Just to correct: the London mayor is not the first Muslim to become a mayor in a Western Europe . Ahmed Abou Taleb is the first Berber Muslim from the Rif Region ( north of Morocco) who became a mayor of Rotterdam ( Netherland) since January 5th , 2009.

Thank you, Naomi, for that lovely conversation with Jeremy Corbyn. I wish we still had a left-wing party in Canada. I voted New Democrat all my life — until recently, and now I have no choice but to vote Green. However, Canada needs more Greens in Parliament, so it’s not as if I can’t sleep at night because of voting for them.,

How did one of the greatest countries on earth, England, burp up a “leader” like Mr. Corbyn? This, the land and people that forced the creation of the Magna Carta! Now they’re romancing collectivism, AKA Communism?
Those who were forced to dig the Moscow-Volga Canal, ask them and their decendents what they think about collectivism. Many of the “workers” were “58’s”-political prisoners held for thought crimes.
It’s easy for Mandarins like Mr. Corbyn and Ms. Klein to promote collectivism, people like them will benefit from collectivist policies. Millions of other people will suffer under the coercion of the State. No thanks.

Corbyn comes across as almost rational and with a good list of victims to cry over while selling his collectivism. This is much more palatable than his raving Stalinist dictate to confiscate property for his agenda after the high rise fire.

His elite Commie roots do show through with his glowing report of the great jobs from the Green revolution that pay about $9/hr with no benefits waiting for the collective.

His manifesto states he intends to take over at least part of the UK oil industry so unless he gets it to function like the UK health system it will compete with his Green dreams.

As those properties lay empty by foreign owners, what’s your problem? It was a severe emergency.
So you’ll happily burn the earth rather than support young and transformative green energy solutions? Imagine if national government fully backed and supported the sector? Oil, coal are dying industries. More harm is done stubbornly propping these old industries up. Best to fully embrace the future and lay out plans that support the transition.
For what it’s worth, Corbyn has outlined that he’d consider renationalising specific monopolistic utilities. Or at least offering a disruptive public alternative within the market to combat huge price rises that go into huge shareholder dividends. The franchised rail network has seen huge price rises and often worse services all the while government subsidies to private rail firms have continued to rise. Again, a nice little earner from the public purse for those companies. He’d prioritise the shutting down of huge corporate tax avoidance to help properly fund the nhs and other vital services such as education and social care. Cuts in funding to these services are a political choice not and economic one.Society isn’t a series of siloed individual transactions. This is the right’s dream as it specifically brings a loss of power and influence by ordinary people. It’s working and fighting together that helps bring change that benefits the many over the few. You don’t have to be a ‘commie’ to believe that.

There was no crisis about finding suitable lodging for the people burned out of their flats but Corbyn couldn’t resist channeling Stalin and showing what he would do with his collective power. You must have noticed that Corbyn’s outburst wasn’t about giving power to the people/collective but him exercising top down power for the Party. This is why the Stalin comparison works with Corbyn and his ilk, they are seeking power by harnessing the power of the collective for their own ends.

Corbyn’s plans to nationalize industries may appear to the naïve as socialist but they are pure State Capitalism just as their Leninist/Stalinist model will keep them. Workers and the collective will not be allowed to make decisions, they have the Party the Great Leader and apparatchiks to handle grown up management of the rubes.

Sorry, Ivan. Green jobs pay between 30-100K per year. The average being 35K or around $16.75 per hour plus full benefits. Not great. Well, not even good, considering minimum wage should be at $15. Nonetheless, $16.75 is a far cry from the $9.00 that you are lying about.

The average earnings for all green job positions was listed by Bloomberg as about $22/hr and this includes high wage and salary positions such as electricians and engineers. The vast majority of jobs in solar are for low skilled low paid installers and their pay scale would reflect the local wage scales with the average for installers being about the same as a burger flipper. Some locals require electricians to install the solar panels and that skews the reality of this dead-end and often migratory labor.

“So what is the plan to make sure that it is progressive, hopeful ideas that enter into this vacuum that has opened up?”

so Jeremy has a much better answer but Im going to say in my opinion there really isnt any lack of good ideas out there. The vacuum is the startled confusion a people that have been conquered and don’t want to face they already lost.

“They are up against Trump, but they’re also up against a Democratic party that is fighting them on single-payer healthcare, on universal public healthcare, that seems to want to keep charting what they see as a safe, centrist path, but what we’re seeing again and again is it’s not safe because it’s a losing path. It’s not speaking to people’s urgent needs for good jobs, for a free public education and affordable healthcare”

If a safe and centrist path isnt safe because its losing and losing because its not speaking to people’s urgent needs, then why would Republicans (you know the party that is actively against universal healthcare and free public education as well as being safe and centrist) be winning?

But still go for a progressive inclusive vision which means a family friendly world. it will probably always just almost get through because our elections, well, are easily hacked even without all of the money out there demanding results and almost winning doesnt look quite as suspicious but also the party in power likes it this way.
Still its worth a try. And by the next time we’re supposed to chooose a president or even 2018 we can see how productive it was to put off the many problems with the integrity of our elections.
You wonder if that neglect will still be excused by people that want a better world for everyone for fear of being tarred and feathered with the Hillary email and Russia/Trump adminstration election connection brush.
personally, I think so. Theyre just as intimidated by the Republican politicians as so many Democrat politicians are

Very interesting little exchange at about 12:20 for about ten seconds.

What I find interesting about this exchange is that Naomi Kline emphasizes the backlash against the MSM and the vote for Corbyn but seems not to recognize that the very same phenomenon elected Trump. That the people who voted for trump did not believe – and quite correctly – that the left was speaking for them just to them. Yes we want you to have a job but only if you think like we do – if your a redneck – go whistle.

I don’t think it was as simple as you outline. First the “left” is not a monolithic block. Don’t confuse Naomi Klein’s left with the Democratic party of the U.S. Second- she is interviewing Corbyn and asking about his experience. If you want a great “tieing it all together” kind of analysis look at Mark Blyth– entertaining and informative videos.

Have you noticed; true leaders lead and speak based on inclusion and hope. You listen and observe and leave feeling refreshed. When did you last feel that from Mr. Trump or Ryan, or McConnell or, for that matter, from Schumer or Pelosi? Ever..?

It seems that current establishment leaders, thinkers and pundits of both parties in the US are living on the planet, “Me and mine first and only, and the hell with everyone else.” Their sense or understanding of “self” extends not beyond their own immediate interests and desire.

On the other hand, some people have a self that includes all of humanity and even all life; “citizens of the planet.” Which would you rather be? What kind of world would you rather live in..?

At this point, we, the people, truly are letting the inmates run the asylum… with predictable and dismal results.

Jeremy is a great opposition leader !
He even represents the opposition within his own party.
Ask him about Brexit, financing free tuition, housing and healthcare and the open borders for refugees ….and he stumbles into generalities and clichés.
He’s a dreamer, the world needs dreamers, but not as leaders.

Bwahaha yeah bud, I can always use a good laugh! Post until your fingers burst… And what a beautiful way to admit you get a skinny little boner thinking about strangers skimming your anonymous crap posts on TI (lol) Is “get a life, loser” still colloquial in Europe? I’ll wait here patiently for the answer, I’m SURE …

As if the World was governed today optimally by “non-dreamers”, stupid!? Jeremy is the only relevant politician today globally that gives hope for other progressives in other countries. And – he still has a long way to go in UK.

I agree the world needs dreamers, but not as leaders. I was around in the seventies and it was awful, and Mgt. Thatcher did not poach ideas from anyone on the opposition, UK was on the verge of bankruptcy and she pulled us back. We were a joke at home and abroad, and she gave us self respect and respect from abroad. She will go down in History as one often Greats. Yes made mistakes, however, not damaging to us overall asa nation. I am a socialist at heart, a capitalist in my head. Voted for the best of the worst of the worst..part of a quote from Mahatma Ghandi. Mr Corbyn has yet to advise where the money is coming from for this Utopian Society.

Like the USA, England is the sovereign issuer of its own nonconvertible currency. England cannot run out of pounds, which it issues through the BOE at will. The only constraint it faces is, are the goods and services it wants to buy available?

Is Sanders like Corbyn? No. For starters, Corbyn actually supports Palestinian rights. I mean, they ARE human beings, for God’s sake. Why does Sanders support Israeli apartheid? Because he’s scared to death of AIPAC.

However, Corbyn is similar to Sanders in that the Powers that Be went all out to destroy them. Doesn’t matter that Corbyn’s telling the truth. The rich and powerful hate that. We must destroy this threat. Now that he won and continues as an MP, they still trash him every day. Even the good old BBC hates him. At least David Dimbleby had the decency to say something about it.

Great comment. I agree.
Don’t forget just how evil rupert murdoch is. He uses his media empire to drive the political agenda for the tyrannical. If you are for justice, equality, fairness, you are his enemy.
And he is pro israel. Surprise surprise.

If Israel were an apartheid state, I, for example, would not be allowed to work for a Jewish newspaper or live in a Jewish neighbourhood or own a home. The real apartheid is in Lebanon, where there is a law that bans Palestinians from working in over 50 professions. Can you imagine if the Knesset passed a law banning Arabs from working even in one profession? The law of Israel does not distinguish between a Jew and an Arab.

When progressives look backwards for inspiration, they become conservatives.

Democracy — rule by the many — has failed.

Trump (including both parties) isn’t the cause of this failure; he (they) is the consequence of this failure. He looks ahead and promises the past — a promise which becomes increasingly appealing as conditions worsen.

Meanwhile commercial and industrial interests continue to prey upon the planet, upon the people, and upon common decency as they craft comfortable lies and claim perpetual virtue.

I offer three unhappy realities.

1. All current economic growth depends upon the exploitation of people and irreplaceable resources.
2. A society that does not anticipate failure will inevitably fail (desperation becomes its own fuel — like drinking seawater to slake thirst.)
3. The future depends more on honeybees than humans.

Any political philosophy that ignores or costumes reality perpetuates illusions because nobody votes to suffer.

not democracy. I think its the internet or the silent protest, the cellphone, 24 hour news. Theyre propaganda loading, perception managing distraction goldmines that the people who wanted a better world for everyone didnt use while the ones that want everyone to suffer for their entertainment saw opportunity organized and have been bombing us with it 24/7 ever since

SIMPLE NOT EASY
Do like the founders of the US did.
1. make a declaration of acknowledgements, aspirations and rights as humans and individuals.
2. create a constitution that provides boundaries, aborts constrictive legal practices, maps out relationships, leans to integration not specialization, and pronounces any test for any single person not a group.
3. declare independence from that which does not work.
4. implement a publicly owned and managed recirculating currency with penalties for hording.
5. restrict and reduce population growth.

Show me the plan that works, then produce a transition plan.
Hint, build – use – maintain. Understand this to know that people are not designed to workworkwork but enjoy and that once things are built unemployment will be a norm. And know that the current fraudulent wallstreet ponzi growth scheme of musical chairs hot potato pass the debt on…. IS A CRIMINAL OPERATION.

Corbyn and Sanders, to differing degrees, represent the global populism that can be sustainable, should we be able to wrench power away from the corrupt purveyors of capitalist globalism…soon enough. Their view of globalism is failing spectacularly, and the selfish pigs are fighting like hell to keep their successes from the rest of us.

What about Charlie Gard, if you are so concerned about children, innocent life, human rights, etc.?
No, that would be too complicated. We need NHS death panels to decide to kill babies when they get inconvenient.
And what about Julian Assange? No questions about him and the charges against him either?

Why do you have the Intercept anyway if every article on the left will be about praise and how well things are doing (you won’t cover Venezuela), and the rest will be Trump Bashing, even when the government policies were set under Obama.

Did you give him a list of questions in advance and ask for his approval?

What’s your problem?
The Terry Schiavo case was a big win for Republicans, wasn’t it?
Have you read the details of the Julian Assange case? No? Check it out.

Each writer has his/her own style, interests, and biases. If you don’t like Ms Klein’s, as it seems in your diatribe above, find another TI journalist. If you don’t like the journalism here in general, you have many other choices.

Charlie Gard?
WHAT A SCAM
Here is a guilt ridden couple who cannot face a tough choice. So instead of suffering the pain of letting the child die, the guilt ridden cowardly selfish couple decide to place their load upon all the rest of us.

We’re in a vacuum of ideaology? How can you be so obtuse in just the first question? This flies in the face of countless years of humanist philosophers and thinkers who have written extensively about the inherent fallacies of our culture and institutions. Just because you choose to bury your heads up your asses when confronted with new ideas does NOT mean there’s a vacuum. It means you choose not to listen and then push the agenda that’s been benefitting you and your clique which is “give us money because we’re the elites who actually care about you despite no evidence to support our claims!”. You’re con artists. It’s why you hate Trump, because he exposes you fools for what you are.

Neocon, neolib, communist, fascists, they’re all pointless labels for “people who don’t value humans and see them as useful means to their ends” or in shorthand: psychopaths.

It’s looking like we can start adding “progressives” to that list of psychopathic con-people. They’re the same old clique of assholes trying to rule the world by any means necessary.

And I have to add, did Klein get her degree in journalism or marketing? This entire conversation revolves around marketing, or “messaging” or whatever term is in vogue now. It has little to do with journalism of any kind. This is just more advertising for her next book.

It seems like the whole goal of her work is to research “How do we better market being an asshole as a benefactor?” which I admit is a pretty shocking doctrine to try and sell.

”We” is everybody that doesn’t buy the neo-liberal and selfish, rapacious ”don’t give a fuck about anybody but me” mindset which you so clearly exemplify.
(And with a name like yours, obviously a Trumper.)

As far as Benito Trump is concerned, what does my name have to do with that asshole??

I’m impressed that you can conjure such rhetorical turds out of thin air.
If ‘you’ cared about anyone, you wouldn’t presume their beliefs and force them into your subjective thought prison while telling them they’re being helped.

Dez, you just wrote that because YOU watched her doc and YOU read her books that SHE’s a loon? If I’m reading you correctly, you’re admitting that YOU exclusively read and watch ONLY loon-made material? … Buddy, I don’t think Klein knows who you are. Your content intake alone does not affect the content creator’s mental state. Are you sure you’ve thought your comment through? I think you’ve got it all quite backwards. Want to try again?

Hey JB, I’ve read your comment 3 or 4 times now and I still don’t understand your point. You wrote “you’re admitting that YOU exclusively read and watch ONLY loon-made material?” I’m not sure what you’re saying. Because I’ve read her books I exclusively read “loon-made material”? Huh?

I’d be happy to translate my comments into French or Spanish if either is your native tongue. Unfortunately, those are the only other languages outside of English that I feel comfortable with.